New York City's Urban Wineries

There would seem to be a lot of ground between a Brooklyn warehouse and American wine country. But New York’s urban wineries are challenging the industry adage that “great wine is made in the vineyard.” They’ve given momentum to a movement that brings modern perspectives to traditional methodologies; talented winemakers in the heart of a city can produce a commended bottle. There’s little contention that good wine does, indeed, come from good grapes. But these inner-city wineries dedicate themselves to – and explore – the subsequent vinification process rather than the viticultural aspects of the discipline that come before.

Now, world-class grapes are trucked into New York City and become the medium through which its enologists create. There, surrounded by concrete avenues and skyscrapers, wineries translate urban creativity and innovation into an eclectic portfolio of wines not only showcasing the world’s best grapes but also New York’s terroir.

Brooklyn Winery epitomizes the connection between traditional vineyards and the modern metropolis. Conor McCormack, the company’s chief winemaker, harnesses long-established relationships with vineyards to bring the country’s finest grapes to the Williamsburg facility. McCormack’s knowledge is the cornerstone of a wine-making operation that views its calling as combining the “quality of tradition with the freedom of innovation.” 

Again, that is the challenge: condensing the oft-expansive practice of winemaking into an urban environment – and doing so successfully. It’s also the excitement. Through the collaborative innovation and creativity of its winemaking team, Brooklyn Winery’s track record is proven. The venue itself also reflects the laid-back sophistication now found in ubiquity throughout Williamsburg – and wider Brooklyn. It's a place to sip handcrafted wines and tour the production facilities in which they are made. Rosette, Brooklyn Winery’s in-house restaurant then provides an indulgent food and wine experience, pairing their vintages with seasonal cuisine. 

Nearby, the Red Hook Winery sits overlooking New York Harbor, the industrial bay windows of its tasting room providing a vista of port traffic, the Verrazzano Bridge, and concrete skylines. The grape-to-bottle facility is another example of the successful collision between a traditionally rural practice and urban innovation. Red Hook’s winemakers, led by Christopher Nicholson, draw on their prior viticultural experiences in the traditional settings of Europe and the West Coast to inform their current vinification methodologies at the heart of the city. The founding vision was, and remains, to showcase the terroir of New York – from the shale shores of Long Island’s North Fork to the glacial Finger Lakes far north of the city. And Red Hook’s guided tasting experiences allow guests to sample some of these best vintages in tandem. 

Across the water, on the banks of the Hudson in Chelsea, City Winery is forging its own urban legacy. Michael Dorf, the company’s founder, is vocal about City Winery’s connection to earlier years of winemaking – that urban wineries are helping to recognize wine as the original craft beverage, with a return to local production and a push for authenticity. Over time, creating wines in the middle of Manhattan has – and will continue to become – less unusual.

City Winery is the realization of a vision to be a hybrid, contemporary city space, bringing more than locally-made products to urban wine enthusiasts. Alongside wine tastings, tours, and dinner reservations, the winery hosts concerts and other events in its intimate performance venue. It’s a framework that unquestionably succeeds, with 14 City Winery locations now present across the United States.

As City Winery champions a return to prior craft philosophies, so does Enlightenment Wines Meadery, a Brooklyn-based operation producing small-batch honey wines. Founder Raphael Lyon began experimenting with fruit wines infused with local ingredients on his family homestead. This curiosity later became the impetus behind Enlightenment, embracing the winemaking practice for its empirical and experimental roots.

Honey’s occupies the corner lot of Enlightenment’s red brick Bushwick complex, the facility’s aptly-named tasting room and public cocktail bar. There, the brand’s barrel-fermented meads, many infused with locally sourced herbs and fruits, take center stage. Of their 2023 vintages, Enlightenment Meadery serves a sour sparkling mead and a proven recipe accented with orange peel and peak-bloom dandelions. 

A spearhead of New York’s urban viticultural movement, Rooftop Reds ripens a selection of grapes on the roof of its Brooklyn Navy Yard venue – courtesy of a custom urban planter system designed with help from industry leaders and Cornell University. Proudly the world’s first commercially viable rooftop vineyard, the setup produces 20-25 cases of wine each year. The rest of Rooftop Reds’ vintages come from vineyards further north on the shores of Keuka Lake in the Finger Lakes wine region. There’s nowhere else in New York City to sip a Bordeaux red next to the grapes from which it came.

Alongside a drive to reinvent the winemaking process, these urban wineries stand out for their connection to the local community, each wine a reflection of the diversity and creativity to be found in New York City. Resident tasting rooms – whether the waterfront views at Redhook or the intimacy of Honey’s – provide a more accessible opportunity to sample the distinct vintages, learn about the vinification process, and even enjoy the company of fellow enthusiasts. Long journeys out into wine country are no longer a necessity, and visitors can still drink the final product at its source. 

New York’s urban wineries are the focal point of an industry shift, where the vineyard connects directly to the inner city.